You wouldn’t know these are Willie Nelson’s boys. They don’t look or sound like him. Lukas and Micah Nelson call their sound “cowboy hippie surf rock,” but that just throws another shovel load on a heap of confusion. These boys are retro rockers, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Perhaps they thought that label would pigeonhole them into a category crammed with tribute bands, but it’s not that way here. They pay tribute to bits and pieces of rock nostalgia, but the way they’re rearranged, the whole package makes it sound new and interesting.
They’ve gotten some pretty good exposure as well, backing Neil Young on 2015’s The Monsanto Years and touring with him to support that release.
The title cut sounds like Led Zeppelin fronted by Black Oak Arkansas’ Jim Dandy Mangrum. Lukas has the perfect voice for this kind of bare chested operatic rock.
Nelson proves he’s more than an arena filling shrieker on “Set Me Down On A Cloud,” sounding like a ballsier, slightly huskier version of Jon Bon Jovi doing gospel-tinged southern rock.
The group takes on Lenny Kravitz on “Don’t Want to Fly,” re-creating Kravitz’ bombastic stuttering guitar, but with a more metal edge, Lukas warbling in classic hair metal fashion.
But the cut that really wobbles the mind is the cover of “San Francisco,” the hippie “wear some flowers in your hair” anthem that the Mamas and Papas’ John Phillips wrote for Scott McKenzie in ’67. It’s a straight up cover until the steel guitar slides in giving it a country flavor. But the boys are just getting started with the redecorating. Neil Young jumps in on the chorus and folks it up till Micah and Lukas amp up the voltage with a barrage of guitar electricity before Lukas turns the volume way down for a quiet vocal accompanied by the soft plunking of an acoustic guitar as the cut fades. The fact that anybody of their generation would even know about that largely forgotten hippie classic is surprising, and that they could take what had become a jokey caricature of the hippie movement and make it a viable, listenable re-entry is a tribute to their considerable talent coupled with a whole lot of nerve.
Whatever label you choose to put on it really doesn’t matter. This stuff works on several levels. Whether you want to stick daisies in your beard or rip off your shirt and bellow like a sweaty rock god, there’s plenty of support here. Thanks again, Willie, for giving us another great musical gift.
